


Hearts charred as any match

by zinjadu



Series: Never Put Together Entirely [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Drink away the pain, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Purple Hawke, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 21:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15693525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu
Summary: Instead of letting Kirkwall's worst uncle tell Bethany about Leandra's death, Hawke does the job herself.  With a little support from her best friend.





	Hearts charred as any match

The door closed behind Gamlen with a dull thud.  Marian stared at the wall, past the spot Gamlen had occupied.  The sounds of life outside the house were dim, distant noises, voices full of meaningless chatter.  She didn’t come back here much.  Or at all.  She’d hated it when she lived here, and she hated this tiny house even more now.  Its thin walls and constant draft, dirty and cramped.  She had wanted to forget she had ever lived here, had worked hard to get the Amell Estate back for Mother and Bethany.

 

Now what did she have to show for it?

 

An empty house.

 

“Hawke,” Varric rumbled.  His voice could boom, could fill a room, but now it was soft, soft as bundled wool.  It was only him with her now, Fenris and Merrill had quietly drifted away.  Or they had told her they would check in on her later.  Maybe.  She couldn’t remember.  She shook herself out of the fog that had curled through her mind.

 

“Fuck,” she bit out, and then strode to the door.  She shoved it open and easily caught up to Gamlen.  Hand to his shoulder, she stopped him mid-stride and he growled indignantly until he looked up and saw it was her.  His niece.  Some uncle he’d been.  Could’ve been worse, she supposed, but he hadn’t been particularly good either.

 

Marian felt hollowed out, empty, for once not sure what to say.  There was no quip, no snide remark that would say what she wanted to say without having to say it.  There was just the ugly, unalterable truth.

 

Leandra was dead.

 

Gamlen’s dull eyes searched her face, and his shoulders slumped as he stepped aside for her.  Marian walked past her uncle and headed for the Gallows. 

 

* * *

 

“Fuck.”  The stark, massive bulk of the Gallows reared up overhead, and Marian came to dead stop as she contemplated what she was about to do.  It made Marian feel small.  She didn’t like that, and she narrowed her eyes at the stone façade as if it had personally offended her.  The light began to fade and merchants and citizens went about their business, walking around her and Varric as they stood in silent contemplation of the building.

 

Glancing down at Varric, she tried to find a question to ask, something to say.  Anything other than _being_ silent.  But there was nothing, just the void between her heart and her mouth.  Varric, however, was good at saying things without having to speak, and his brown eyes were filled with sympathetic understanding.  Not pity, never pity, but _knowing_. 

 

She’d sat with him in the Chantry after Bartrand because she didn’t want him to face it alone.  He stood with her in front of the Gallows now for the same reason she supposed.  He was more solid than the stone under her feet, a person of _truth_ in a world of liars.  Oh, he _said_ he lied, but he told the truth, the truth that was the heart and soul and center of the world even if he hid it with allusions and metaphor.  And the truth was that she was not alone.

 

Squaring her shoulders and holding her head high, Marian headed to the gateway to the Circle.  Her bootheels rang on the cobblestones, echoing off of the sheer stone walls that lined the courtyard.  The Templars would only let her in as a family member, not Varric.  But if he was standing here, then she could find her way back.

 

* * *

 

The Templars called it a meeting room.  It was a closet at best, cramped and stuffy with a single glowlamp giving off more than enough light for the confines of the walls.  Marian had spoken in simple terms, unvarnished and ugly.  Once, Marian had tried to protect the twins, had been _raised_ to protect them, turned into a weapon by Malcolm to keep his younger children safe.

 

It hadn’t worked out.

 

Bethany was an adult.  She was a mage in the Gallows.  There was no standing between Bethany and danger anymore, if there ever had been.  Her little sister deserved the honesty. 

 

The world was still too quiet, like she’d stood too close to bell or a fireball or one of those qunari black powder charges and her hearing had yet to recover.  She watched as Bethany’s hand flew to her mouth and tears ran down her cheeks.  Marian thought Bethany might have screamed, but the noise was at a remove. 

 

Like when she’d been little, Marian wrapped her arms around Bethany and let her sister cry.  She rocked Bethany back and forth after they sank to the ground, unable to support themselves or each other.

 

“I’m sorry,” Marian whispered, her voice foreign to her own ears.  Bethany shook her head, but Marian persisted.  “I’m sorry, Bethy.”

 

“Marian, you aren’t—”

 

“Oh Maker, I’m _so sorry_ ,” Marian sobbed.  Great hiccoughing sobs that tore through her with sharp blades of regret and failure.  Marian could count the number of times she cried on one hand, even including this.  And she wasn’t sure if she was crying for Leandra or Bethany or herself, or maybe all three. 

 

“It’s alright, Bethy, it’s alright if.” Marian choked on her own words, words she couldn’t say.  _Alright if you blame me_.  Hadn’t she always been to blame?  Too wild, too stubborn, too drunk, too loose, too sarcastic?  Too late.

 

Too late.

 

“I’m not _her_.  I miss her, but Maker’s breath, Marian, I’m _not her_ ,” Bethany said between sobs.  She threw her arms around Marian’s neck and the sisters clung to each other on the hard floor of a tiny room.  Bethany wasn’t Leandra, not one to blame for the sake of appointing blame.  Marian missed and didn’t miss Leandra at the same time, and she wondered if she wouldn’t feel like such shit if she’d loved her mother like a good daughter should.  Or if Leandra had been a better mother.

 

Then the Templar positioned outside the room knocked on the door; their time was up.  The sound was sharp and hard, and Marian hated it instantly.

 

Teeth clenched, Marian snarled, “Fuck off!”

 

“You can’t talk to me—!”

 

Marian stood and wrenched the door open, startling the Templar into taking a half step back.  He clattered in all that armor, and Marian glared at him with all the violence and will she could muster.  His eyes went wide and he swallowed heavily.

 

“Try that again, you little shit.”

 

“Um, I’ll… just… let someone know when you’re ready to go Messre Hawke,” the boy squeaked before fleeing along the hallway.  Behind her, Bethany stifled a snort, then another, and then a brittle laugh slid out between her lips like an arrowhead from a wound. 

 

Marian turned to stare at her crying and sobbing sister, but between the breathless madness that now infected Bethany, she managed to say, “Just like.  The boys.  In Lothering.  Scared of you, so much.  Never would come to the front door.  Mother… mother, she said you were better than a chastity belt!”

 

A slow smile curved Marian’s lips, and she huffed.  That was right.  She’d had half the boys in Lothering scared.  Well, all of them really, and half of them kind of liked it.  And they all knew better than to try to tease or chase after Bethany after she’d made it clear she wasn’t interested in the village boys.

 

“That’s right,” Marian said, dipping into the memory.  For a wonder it didn’t hurt and her smile grew wider.  “You remember how Carver used to think they were scared of _him_?”

 

“Oh Maker that’s right!” Bethany exclaimed, covering her mouth with one hand as if to stop more laughter from spilling forth.  But there was no stopping it, and Marian sank back onto the floor, long legs splayed out in front of her while they remembered the family they once had been.

 

* * *

 

The Templar slammed the gate shut behind her, but Marian didn’t care.  She’d had her time with Bethany, more than they wanted to let her have, and she left knowing that Bethany would be alright.  Her sister had made friends in the Circle—Bethany had always made friends easily—and she’d be looked after.  The sun had finally sunk below the horizon, and only the merchants remained as they packed way their wares.  No patrons in the Gallows after dark.

 

Out the corner of her eye, Marian caught sight of someone moving, walking toward her, and she shifted her weight to the balls of her feet.  She had her sword on her, returned by the oh-so-thoughtful Templars as she left the Gallows, and whoever was about to attack her was going to learn a short, sharp object lesson in accosting women in the dark. 

 

“Hey there, Hawke.”  Varric’s basso rumble bypassed her knee-jerk reaction to kill anything in a five foot radius, and she slumped forward.   “How’s our little Sunshine?”

 

“She’ll be alright,” Hawke said flatly.  She really could have done with killing something right about now.  Killing something was better than feeling anything at the moment.   “Only reason I left.”  He hummed thoughtfully, but she was looking past him, her eyes trained on the water just visible beyond the blocky arches that framed the courtyard.

 

“Come on, Hawke, let’s get out of here.”  He didn’t do anything as patronizing as take her by the hand and lead her away because he knew well enough not to.  Her eyes went out of focus and she breathed out slowly.   She should get back to the Estate.  Make arrangements.  More things she didn’t want to do. 

 

“I don’t want to go home.”

 

“Didn’t say you should.” 

 

* * *

 

Marian hated crying.  She’d cried enough with Bethany earlier.  Varric had walked with her back to the Hanged Man, where she’d swiped a bottle of whiskey from the bar on her way to Varric’s rooms.  Varric had assured the bar keep it was alright.  Hawke didn’t pay attention to that.

 

Instead, she’d planted herself on the floor and drank.  Drank like a woman on a mission.  Then again, she was on a mission.  A mission to not think, to not feel.  Thinking and feeling were _awful_ , and she’d had more than her fill lately.

 

So she wasn’t crying.

 

She was _drinking_.

 

“And another thing, ‘nother fucking thing, she… she was always, fuck.  On me to get _married_.  Me?  Fuck.  What kind of?  Fuck.”  Marian didn’t know where the words were coming from.  She didn’t care, and her voice slurred over the words.  She slumped down further and put her head in Varric’s lap.  It was a good lap.  “She wasn’t all bad, you know.”

 

“Of course not.  She liked me,” Varric drawled, and Marian giggle-snorted.

 

“You and Aveline.  She _hated_ Isabela.”

 

“Is that why you let Isabela slide down the bannisters?”

 

“You saying that like I coulda _stopped_ her.”

 

“Hm, that’s a fair point.”  He stroked his chin thoughtfully and glanced down at her.  Marian’s eyes drifted to watch the floor, in case it did anything surprising like go all twirly.

 

“She tried to stand up to Malcolm.  _Father_.  When I was thirteen.  Said I was too young.  For the smuggling runs,” Marian told him.  “She _tried_.”

 

“She loved you.”

 

“I dunno.  Maybe.  Doesn’t matter.  Not anymore.”  Marian took another drink, and then pouted when she suddenly ran out of whiskey.  That wasn’t right.  She gestured with the bottle, shaking it front of Varric’s face.  “More!”

 

“I think you’ve had enough,” Varric told her as he gently removed the bottle from her clumsy fingers.  Marian wanted to fight him for that, but her whole body felt too heavy. 

 

“Noooo,” she trailed off weakly, pathetically. 

 

“Yeeees,” he countered in a rumbling sing-song tone.  Harrumphing and tossing around, Marian thought this was entirely unfair.  She wanted to get blind drunk and pass out, and if she wasn’t careful she might find herself sober at some point in the distant future.  That was a fate worse than death. 

 

Gingerly, Varric began to stroke her hair, combing her messy black bob away from her face with blunt fingers.  She didn’t want gentle.  She didn’t want understanding.  She wanted drunk.  She wanted to kick something, to rip something apart.  Or to fuck something.  She wanted hard and hurting.  Varric hummed softly, low thrum in his chest, and Marian’s vision swam.

 

She hated crying.

 

She was done with crying.

 

Tears feel from her eyes in fat, ugly drops, and a scream tore from her chest like a mourning cry of a bird of prey.  A hawk’s cry from a Hawke.  How stupid and apt.  And somewhere, between the crying and the humming and the scent of whiskey and ink on paper, Marian sank into black oblivion.

 

* * *

 

Marian’s mouth tasted like death.  Or more accurately, that something small and fuzzy had crawled into her mouth and died in the most gruesome way possible.  Her eyes were sticky, and they opened with an audible snick.  Grimacing, she shifted, and belatedly realized she wasn’t on the floor.  She was on Varric’s bed, the blankets tucked up around her like a cocoon. 

 

This was not the first time Varric had let her stay over after she’d passed out on his floor, and like every time Marian hoped it was the last.

 

She doubted it would be.

 

There was nothing quite like waking up to the sight and sound of Varric writing away at his desk, hunched over reams of paper, scribbling away as he created worlds out of cobwebs.  It was more like home than home was.

 

Or ever would be again.

 

“You want some breakfast?” he asked, as if she hadn’t broken down into shards all over his floor last night.  She blinked, her eyes still tacky, and licked her lips.  Nope, still tasted like shit.  But for all that she was muzzy headed from crying and drinking and all those fucking complicated _emotions_ about Leandra’s death lingering in her head like a bad guest, at least she wasn’t miserable and alone.

 

A wan smile flitted across her face, and she said in a froggy voice, “Yeah, sounds good.”


End file.
